Warriors $9 Million Guard Likely to Depart for Knicks This Summer

The Golden State Warriors can’t bring back everyone from last year’s roster, but after a disappointing second-round playoff exit and mounting luxury tax penalties, they shouldn’t want to.

One player the Dubs would like to keep is rotation wing Donte DiVincenzo, who significantly outperformed the first season of the two-year, $9.2 million deal he signed with the franchise last summer. Because of how well he played, DiVincenzo chose to opt out of the final year of that deal and hit the free agent market this summer. He is expected to be a contender for the full mid-level exception somewhere in the NBA next season, which will top out in the ballpark of $12.5 million, and the New York Knicks must be considered the frontrunners to sign him.

The reason for that is two-fold, as explained by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on the June 30 edition of the Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective podcast. The first is that Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, DiVincenzo’s collegiate national championship teammates at Villanova, are both under contract in New York.

The second, Windhorst explained, is that Hart made the surprise decision to opt in to the final year of his current deal with the Knicks at the price of $12.96 million, considerably less than he could have gotten annually on a multiyear deal by opting out and re-upping in New York.

That move opened up the window for the franchise to use the full mid-level exception this summer, which points strongly to a play to reunite DiVincenzo with Hart and Brunson in New York come October.

---

Josh Hart Recruiting Warriors’ Donte DiVincenzo to Knicks

Aside from taking a little less money in the immediate to make sure the Knicks can add a player like DiVincenzo on the mid-level exception, Hart has been actively recruiting his old teammate to join him at the “Mecca” of basketball — the common, even if somewhat unearned, nickname of Madison Square Garden.

“Those [Villanova] guys in the league, I’m trying to get them to [New York],” Hart said in a June 5 interview with Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report. “[DiVincenzo], that’s my guy. I was talking to him the other day.”

When it comes to DiVincenzo, it’s about more than just basketball for Hart, and presumably for Brunson as well.

“Those are my guys because as an athlete — and when you’re in those situations, especially when you go on the road — it’s just the guys in the locker room. It’s just your boys,” Hart continued. “So we had that culture of high-character guys, and we were all extremely close. We all actually genuinely liked each other.”

---

Donte DiVincenzo Will Command Too Much Money for Warriors to Afford Him

Even if DiVincenzo didn’t have the pull of recreating his college years with some of his best friends in the sport’s biggest market, it would still be exceedingly difficult for the Warriors to bring him back.

Golden State is well over the salary cap and will pay the repeater tax penalty this year, which means every dollar the team spends will cost it exponentially more on the balance sheet. The Warriors parted ways with Jordan Poole via a trade to the Washington Wizards, which will clear money off the team’s books in the long run. However, that won’t start until 2024-25, as the Dubs brought back Chris Paul in that deal on a contract worth slightly more than $30 million this season.

The Warriors also re-signed Draymond Green to a four-year deal worth $100 million on the opening day of free agency, locking him and Steph Curry in at huge annual numbers for the next three seasons at least. Curry is signed through the 2025-26 campaign, while Green will have a player option on his final contract year in 2026-27.

Klay Thompson is up for an extension next summer, and considering the moves the front office has made to this point, signing him to a lucrative deal — albeit at something of a discount in comparison to the max contract for which he will be eligible — is likely to be the franchise’s top priority.

As such, DiVincenzo on something like a $10 million-$12 million deal annually is a luxury the Warriors simply can’t afford. Taking anything less would be DiVincenzo undervaluing himself, after he put up 9.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.3 steals on more than 26 minutes per night across 72 regular season games played for the Dubs last season, per Basketball Reference.

0 Comments